Kevin Ryan makes it clear that the fires should have had a negligible
effect on the WTC towers, as he made clear in his letter
to NIST.

In post
29, shaman_ argued that Mr. Ryan bases that belief on the belief that the
steel didn't reach temperatures over 250C and that that view is mistaken.

This is true. But as I pointed out in post
44, it's understandable that Ryan was misled in this regard, shaman's
feelings on the matter notwithstanding. Mr. Ryan explains in his letter
to Frank Gayle of NIST:
"Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures
of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic
analysis of the situation."

In post
45, shaman_ contests the fire calculations, stating:
"Based on what? You have picked this number from the samples."

The number is apparently what NIST was suggesting in its interim
report and was certainly a number that Kevin Ryan felt was reasonable. He says
as much in his letter to NIST's Frank Gayle:
***********************
Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of
only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic
analysis of the situation.
***********************

"No that is what Ryan wanted to believe from reading
the interim report. Their report from 2004 (is that the one we are talking about?)
had estimates of temperatures far above 250C. Didn't they estimated pockets
reaching 2000F very early on? Even the conspiracy theorists quote that one.
Where do you get the idea that NIST don’t think the temperature went over
250C? Do you even know? You are just mindlessly repeating what Ryan said without
even computing that the number was cherry picked from the steel tests.
The belief from the beginning was that the fire got very hot, near 1000C. "

"Just to make sure that we're arguing about the
same thing, here's the relevant excerpt of Kevin Ryan's letter to NIST's Frank
Gayle:
"Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures
of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic
analysis of the situation."
He is claiming 2 things:
1- NIST's Frank Gayle, who led the 2004 investigation, is the one who was suggesting
that steel temperatures were probably only exposed to temperatures of about
500F/250C. In post
87, shaman_ disagrees with this assertion, but in post
169, Headspin makes it clear that the assertion
is valid.
2- That this is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
If he's claiming this, I assume that such an analysis was actually -done-, but
if so, I don't have it on hand." In post
87, shaman_ disagrees with this assertion.